A month ago today, Google began commercialising Google Shopping searches in the UK. ClickThrough has been managing Google Merchant Centre accounts for several high-profile businesses since then. As a result, our PPC experts have helped to boost ROI (return on investment) by 54%and cut click costs by 28%. Here, online copywriter Jack Adamsexamines the impact of the switch.

In just the first four weeks, we’ve seen a rise of 54% on return on investment from product listing ads, compared to PPC text ads..

On average, we’ve seen CPCs (cost per click) on product listing ads fall by 28% compared to AdWords ads.

We’ve also found product listing ads now account for 25% of paid search traffic for several clients.

So, despite the initial qualms raised by many advertisers about Google Shopping being commercialised, it seems the changes are benefitting UK retailers.

Some businesses feared product listing ads would force them to spend huge amounts to appear within the Google Shopping feed – traffic they had previously got for free.

Although it’s still in a transitional phase - with a mix of product listing ads and the traditional free Shopping results to be displayed until June – what seems to be happening is the opposite: product listing ads give better ROI and cost less per click.

If anything, there is a real opportunity to make money with product listing ads.

And there’s a real incentive to get on the product listing bandwagon sooner rather than later too.

Retailers that sign up for at Google Merchant account, and create product listing ads before 31 March, will get a ten per cent discount from Google.

Here at ClickThrough, we’ve launched a number of new services to help online retailers reap the benefits of their Google Merchant account – including a Google Shopping audit, Google Merchant account set-up service, and day-to-day Google product feed management service.

With the Google Merchant set-up service, our AdWords experts set up an account and create product listing ads, complete with optimised product descriptions and images.

The audit assesses the potential loss of revenue and traffic a retailer could experience if they don’t setup product listing ads, researches current search trends within Shopping, and reviews any existing activity within the Google Merchant Centre.

Additionally, we can also take on the day-to-day management of a Google Merchant Centre account.

Our AdWords experts can manage budgets, optimise accounts on a weekly basis, adjust bids, review Google product feeds, monitor the quality of the traffic the ads are generating, as well as the products themselves and prices, and provide on-going technical support.